'Alienist: Angel of Darkness' review: Gilded Age depravity, in an America hostile to 'foreign undesirables'

We accommodate all sorts of sadism and bloodshed in period crime stories, as long as we get the right sort of eyeful along with it - "atmosphere," as it's generally described. Seductive production design, bamboozling digital recreations of vanished eras of American life, the clip-clop of horse-drawn carriages are play their part in the soothing illusion of the past. The depravity may be pervasive but the clothes look swell.

Case in point: "The Alienist: Angel of Darkness," which premiered on TNT Sunday. This is